As is fitting for an expanding resource dedicated to the study of early modern book history, BASIRA was represented in full force at the bi-annual meeting of the Early Book Society, held at New York University from June 23rd to 27th, 2025. Over the course of a week, approximately 100 scholars gathered to explore a fascinating theme: Readers, Makers, and Medieval Consumer Culture: Manuscripts and … Continue reading BASIRA in New York
BASIRA is not just about records in a database: it is also about building communities of shared interest. Thus, when several members of the faculty of Wellesley College expressed an interest in uses of BASIRA in their humanities curriculum, members of the BASIRA team were pleased and energized. Thanks to an invitation from Drs. Yoon Lee, Martha McNamara, and Bailey Ludwig, Barbara Williams Ellertson visited … Continue reading Visit to Wellesley College
The BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art) Project has earned praise in a June 2024 review by Lisa N. Peters for the Art Libraries Society of North America Multimedia & Technology Reviews. See pdf below and permalink here. Continue reading BASIRA called “an outstanding model of digital humanities” in ARLIS/NA review
On 10 June 2024, the BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art) Project crossed an important threshold by publishing its 2,000th Document Record. This growth represents an increase of 25% from the records available upon the initial public launch of the database in November 2023. Throughout the remainder of the year, the BASIRA Project team plans to expand the total number of published records by … Continue reading BASIRA reaches milestone with 2,000 Document Records
It has been a busy spring for the BASIRA team, as we work to publicize the database, demonstrate exciting new research discoveries, and build a robust user base. On one remarkable day in March 2024, Nicholas Herman gave an online tour of the BASIRA search interface to about 60 participants via Zoom as part of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies’ Online Lecture program, while … Continue reading Spreading the Word (and Image): BASIRA on the Road in Spring 2024
Read this book review published online in The Medieval Review, written by BASIRA Co-Director Nicholas Herman. Lucy Sandler, Penned and Painted: The Art & Meaning of Books in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (London): British Library Publishing, 2022. Pp. 176. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN: 978-0-7123-5436-3 (hardback). Continue reading Review of “Penned and Painted: The Art & Meaning of Books in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts”
Learn more about BASIRA in this recent Penn Libraries News story authored by BASIRA Co-Director Nicholas Herman: Search Thousands of Works of Art With BASIRA. Continue reading Search Thousands of Works of Art With BASIRA: Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art
November marked the launch of a compelling new digital resource hosted by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and the Penn Libraries. BASIRA, the Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art project (https://basira.library.upenn.edu), is a new, open-access online database of representations of books and other textual documents in the figurative arts between approximately 1300 and 1600 CE. With the launch of the new database portal, users … Continue reading Investigating the Image of the Book: BASIRA launches at the 2023 Schoenberg Symposium
We’re delighted to announce that the BASIRA public search interface will officially launch at this year’s Schoenberg Symposium for Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, which will be held November 16–18 2023 at the University of Pennsylvania and the Free Library of Philadelphia. Now in its sixteenth year, the Schoenberg Symposium is an open, free-to-the-public event that gathers scholars, students, and interested members of the … Continue reading Save the Date: BASIRA launches at the 2023 Schoenberg Symposium, November 16–18 2023
As the BASIRA team continues adding works of art to the database, it’s often essential that we closely examine tiny details of the images. When an artist portrays even a fragment of text legibly, we can find rewarding connections. A recent entry led us to other digital humanities endeavors in almost startling ways. Thanks to extensive work by scholars from the University of Waterloo and … Continue reading Appreciating Connections
